


the heart, telepathic

by pomelo (rootcellars)



Category: HINAPIA (Band), PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Pining, post-disbandment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24499735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rootcellars/pseuds/pomelo
Summary: Eunwoo puts a memory to rest.
Relationships: Jung Eunwoo/Zhou Jie Qiong | Kyulkyung
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox (Round 2)





	the heart, telepathic

The scrabble of Nayoung’s nails against the card, her nervous laughter, the familiar, endearing shock on her face as she opens it. Jieqiong up on the stage next to her, peering over her shoulder, her round eyes growing rounder – and someone’s hand in hers, so tight Eunwoo worries the nails will break skin.

It’s the euphoria of that shining memory that carries Eunwoo through everything. Through the next two years, through a failed comeback and disbandment, through Hinapia’s slow, rocky climb back into the industry. “Pristin,” says Nayoung’s sweet and shaky voice on that evening, and Eunwoo thinks that her heart will never beat that fast again.

First it’s something to aspire to again, the moment she clings to during the late nights when Jieqiong and Yewon stay late with her in the practice room, taking her through the choreo. And even later, when Yewon dozes off in the corner and Jieqiong leads her through the motions one last time. Think about the teary eyes, the death grip of Jieqiong’s hug, how proud Kyla must have been watching from home. Eunwoo watches Sungyeon hum new melodies, tries to interpret Nayoung’s face coming out from company meetings.

Eventually it hurts too much to hope and the memory becomes something bittersweet, burnished by time, that Eunwoo relives when she doesn’t want to think too much about the present.

“Of course I remember,” says Jieqiong, when she asks. Like a V promotions are winding down. She and Eunwoo are lying side by side on a bunk in the dorms, and Jieqiong fingers a strand of bubblegum pink. Without having to ask, Eunwoo knows she means, _of course I miss it too._

  
  
  
  


When contracts are signed and all is said and done, Eunwoo feels… nothing. The gaping hole inside of her that was Pristin and everything Pristin could have been is certainly not new. It’s been a long, slow process of mourning. The scar tissue, though, still smarts.

Even in the wake of disbandment, some things feel so familiar. Kyla gives the members – officially ex-members now – a last round of hugs before explaining that she has to leave, that her mother is waiting and her flight back to LA is early tomorrow morning. Nayoung snakes an arm around Siyeon’s shoulders and rubs circles, but there’s a shuttered look on her face. The oldest and youngest, who gave so much of their lives to this company, this dream. Sungyeon and Yewon sit close, their dark heads huddled together. And Eunwoo, of course, finds herself with Jieqiong.

“I’m sorry, Nunu,” says Jieqiong, “It’s too bitter for Pristin to end like this.”

Eunwoo shakes her head, dry-eyed. “We worked hard.” It’s true, but her own voice sounds foreign to her. She wonders what she’s going to do tomorrow, in the interminable days and weeks after.

“I wish you could come with me,” says Jieqiong, quietly.

Eunwoo smiles at the thought, but it’s a sad smile. “They’re paying to see Joo Kyulkyung and her legendary side profile and her big expressive eyes. Not a kicked puppy who doesn’t even speak the language.”

Jieqiong nuzzles her cheek into Eunwoo’s head. “It’s not like I didn’t try to teach you. _Wo hen piao liang_. Now who could resist that.”

From her vantage point on her shoulder, Eunwoo looks over at Jieqiong’s downturned eyes, the characteristic pout of her lips. Jieqiong pitches her voice differently when she’s speaking Chinese, enough to almost make her sound like a different person. Eunwoo wishes she could know that Jieqiong the way she knows this one, intimacy in the way they trade banter and whine each other’s nicknames. Maybe things would make more sense in Chinese. Maybe the future would feel different.

“None of us blame you, you know?” Eunwoo says. “You have to go on. We all have to.”

“Of course I know,” says Jieqiong. “It was all of our dreams, though. But every survivor feels guilty.” She shakes her head, and Eunwoo watches her gaze stray to Nayoung and Siyeon. “I’ll do my best to make you proud, Nunu. You know that, right?”

  
  
  
  


Eunwoo moves through the next few days as if on autopilot. Socks get folded and stuffed into a mesh bag, skirts heaped into the bottom right corner of her suitcase. Jieqiong hovers, following Eunwoo from room to room like a butterfly. She helps Eunwoo peel polaroids off the wall, stick them carefully in the pocket of her bag.

It’s not unlike a memory from three years back, but then, the spring sunshine had buzzed with possibility, and Eunwoo hadn’t been able to keep the goofy smile off her face as she sat down on the bulging suitcase so that Jieqiong could zip it up. Now the glare of the April sun throws into stark relief all the words that Eunwoo can’t say. _I’m the one leaving, so why do I still feel like I’m being left behind?_

Later, when the sun has nearly set, they’re sitting across from each other in front of the TV and slurping convenience store ramyeon. “It’s never felt so spacious before,” says Eunwoo. “No more fighting over the shower. No more sinks full of dishes.” It’s bittersweet, but Eunwoo is rewarded with a small quirk at the edge of Jieqiong’s mouth. Even after all these years, even after a day like this one, she’s always chasing that smile.

“What are you going to do once you get home?” asks Jieqiong.

“Sleep and eat, you know. Rewatch Rooftop Prince.” Eunwoo has been trying not to think about it. “Minkyung unnie wants to do… something, I think.”

“You forgot something,” says Jieqiong, smiling impishly now. “You’re going to call me every day and tell me everything, right?”

Eunwoo snorts. “Yes, your own personal Eunwoo feed. ‘Oh Juju, my mom wanted me to help with the kimchi and are you surprised I’m still useless with a knife?’ ‘Juju yah, here’s a log of my bowel movements, I miss you!’ I’ll make you regret it.”

Jieqiong giggles, places her hand over Eunwoo’s.

“You’ll be on stage again, before you know it,” she tells Eunwoo. “You’ll be busy again. And of course they’ll love you.” Jieqiong’s eyes are sweet and sincere.

  
  
  
  


Jieqiong is right. Eunwoo’s languid days at home turn into a flurry of meetings once Minkyung sets everything in motion. 

“Hinapia,” she sings to Jieqiong over the phone, swinging her feet over the river. The name feels new and bright on her tongue, and the planks of the bridge burn into her thighs with summer heat. Jieqiong repeats the name back to her in wonder. She receives it giddily, like a birthday present.

“I’m telling you, they’re going to love you,” says Jieqiong.

“If you say so,” says Eunwoo. She closes her eyes and leans her head against the railing, savors the timbre of Jieqiong’s voice.

  
  
  
  


When Jieqiong comes back for the new year, Minkyung drives a squealing carful of girls to Incheon to greet her. Jieqiong is bright-eyed as always, wrapped in a woolen and expensive-looking coat, her hair in braids. She’s cute, like she always is. Bringing up the rear, Eunwoo is the last to get her hug. With Jieqiong in her arms, both their cheeks a little cold from the winter air, Eunwoo breathes in deep and holds her breath as she squeezes.

“Ahh,” sighs Jieqiong once they’ve reached Nayoung’s place, where she pushes her suitcase into a corner and drapes her entire body across the sofa. “It feels like home here.”

“It is home.” Eunwoo squeezes herself onto the armrest by Jieqiong’s head. Well, now it is. Sungyeon has anointed herself DJ for the night. Kyungwon is zipping around the room, proffering questionably mixed drinks. Nayoung sits at the kitchen counter like a stone guardian lion for their unruly family, a smile playing at the edge of her mouth.

Over dinner a week later, Eunwoo watches fondly as Jieqiong basks in the attention – all the questions, all the praise. She’s still the golden girl of the family, even after all this time. It’s good that Nayoung’s parents closed the restaurant just for them tonight, because the banter is reaching a fever pitch.

“Any cute boys in Shanghai?” says Yaebin, leaning in close to Jieqiong with the end of a noodle hanging out of her mouth.

Eunwoo scowls and hits her. “What, like she’s going to give you their numbers?”

“No, silly,” says Yaebin, waggling her eyebrows. “I mean like, has anyone caught our Kyulkyungie’s eye?”

Jieqiong rolls her eyes. _Of course not_ , Eunwoo wants to say. _Do you think Kyulkyung has ever looked at a boy like that?_

“Oh come on!” says Siyeon from two bowls down, gesturing with her chopsticks. “You know she and Eunwoo unnie are going to get married any day now,” and the table breaks out in laughter.

Jieqiong laughs along with the rest of them, threading her fingers through Eunwoo’s. “At least now Taiwan isn’t too far away,” she says, and a fresh chorus of giggles ensues. Eunwoo knows it’s a joke, but the laugh that comes from her throat is brittle. She tips her head onto Jieqiong’s shoulder as the chatter around them continues. She doesn’t want to think about Taiwan, doesn’t want to think about Shanghai, nor any amount of distance across the Yellow Sea. Jieqiong’s fingers squeeze back into hers, a small reassurance. Eunwoo imagines she’s saying, _being here in Asan with you is enough._

Though what really would be enough for Eunwoo she doesn’t know herself. She lets herself melt back into the comfort of being all together again, Jieqiong’s hand in hers, Siyeon’s real laugh breaking through the conversation. She should be grateful, she supposes, for this family that has lasted past whatever Pledis could do to them.

“You’re very quiet today,” says Jieqiong, when their bellies are full and they’re sitting in the back of the van, Eunwoo on one side, Sungyeon a warm sleepy weight on her other.

“Am I?” asks Eunwoo. “Maybe I’m just like this now.” She thinks about the last time Jieqiong was in Korea, their last night in the Pristin dorms. Then, too, everything she wanted but couldn’t put into words had been something lodged in the back of her throat, tugging at every one of her attempts at banter. It’s never been hard to talk to Jieqiong, but it’s certainly been much, much easier.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” says Jieqiong, but there’s something a little sad in her voice. “Maybe the next time I come back you’ll be a monk.”

“As if.” Eunwoo tries to force a laugh but her cheeks are shaking.

The next time, the next time. Maybe the next time Jieqiong comes back Eunwoo will be a literal husk, shriveled and empty from wanting. “I miss you,” Eunwoo says quietly, and though it’s something she says every day over the phone to Jieqiong, texts unthinkingly all the time, she hopes it conveys the weight of – everything. “It’s a little selfish, isn’t it? But I just want us back.”

The highway lights pass over Jieqiong’s face, an expression Eunwoo can’t interpret. She parts her lips, pauses, closes then again. Her eyes close for a second longer than a blink, but then they’re open again, not quite meeting Eunwoo’s own.

“I miss you too,” she says, and sighs. “Work hard, all right Nunu? And come visit me when you tour in Shanghai.”

“What,” says Eunwoo.

“Ah,” Jieqiong says with a weak grin, and Eunwoo can pinpoint when the tone of her voice slips into reassurance, when the moment slips away from her. “I know it’s a bitter climb. But there’s no one I believe in more than you, you know?”

“Okay.”

“I’m your number one fan from an ocean away,” says Jieqiong, but she sounds unsure now too, wanting. Her eyes are plaintive. If nothing else, she knows, at least, how Eunwoo sulks when something hurts.

  
  
  
  


Because Eunwoo hates herself, or really maybe because she wants a pain she can put a name to, she lies alone in the dorm later that night and searches: _Pristin 2017 Mama Japan_.

It’s not like she hasn’t seen the video countless times already, or cried over it at least as many times – happy and heartbroken tears both. This time she watches it numbly, the most familiar five minutes of her life. She wonders if Jieqiong ever watches it, if it hurts as much for her as it does for Eunwoo. Probably not.

She misses when Jieqiong could read her without a problem, could see what was eating at Eunwoo from the inside out and soothe it with a hug, an offhand comment. She never took it for granted per se, but it was easy to enjoy when they were living together – when Pristin still had a future, when they thought that win would be the first of many. She and Jieqiong are in the same city again, but Eunwoo feels the distance between them yawning wide.

She just wants Jieqiong to say something that will make it all right again, but even she doesn’t know what it is she needs to hear.

In the video, they’re standing on opposite ends of the Pristin lineup, buzzing with adrenaline. Jieqiong in her black and white emcee getup, Eunwoo in the schoolgirl blazer and scarlet skirt. The camera zooms out and the lights fade after Nayoung’s speech, but Eunwoo knows that she and Jieqiong are crowding into each other by the end, closing the circle. The documentation feels important, the five million views feel important, even if Eunwoo knows there’s so much more to them than pre-disbandment and ex-Pristin. Jieqiong misses her, she’s sure about that at least. That much can’t be only in her head.

As if the universe is out to get her, her phone pings with a text from Jieqiong: _Good night~_

She considers texting Jieqiong the link to the video, just to be – what? Curious, maybe, cruel, probably. Hochu decides to climb up on her bed and sit square in the middle of her back. She deletes the half-written text and instead sends a photo of the cats from the other day, basking in the winter sunlight of the dorm.

Eunwoo scrolls up. Jieqiong texted her a link to the Cancer horoscope for the new year a few days ago, and Eunwoo hasn’t opened it yet.

  
  
  
  


Nayoung finally lures Eunwoo out to lunch with the promise of soondubu on her, but Eunwoo isn’t naive enough to think that it’s simply a girls’ day out. True to the stone epithet, Nayoung keeps up the pretense for as long as it takes the waiter to take their orders, but once he whisks away their menus she steeples her hands and looks into Eunwoo’s eyes. “I’m worried about you,” she says bluntly. “And I know that you know.”

Eunwoo sighs.

“So you miss her, but it’s different,” Nayoung says, once Eunwoo explains everything. “What’s different?”

Eunwoo shifts, chewing on a mouthful of rice and soup. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. I should just, you know,” she swallows, “accept it. But I can’t. Every time I think about what we had and what we are now my brain shuts down.” She laughs weakly, but Nayoung doesn’t take the bait.

“Some things you have to talk about in person,” says Nayoung. “I miss Illa, I miss Kyulkyung, and I miss what we all had together. But you know how it is,” she says, her eyes lowering. “Of course memories of good times and KKT aren't enough when it’s someone who holds the whole of your heart.”

Eunwoo hums. Thinks about the life Nayoung has built for herself. She’s always looked up to her, past the three-year age gap and the head of height difference. To Eunwoo, Nayoung at nineteen with her skinny knees in the green practice room had been the epitome of adulthood: guarded, stoic, bearing the entire world on her shoulders. Now, the Nayoung that sits across from her smiles a little easier, with the maturity of long-practiced acceptance.

“Just because we’re not together in that practice room anymore doesn’t mean you have to settle for those memories,” says Nayoung. “New things can grow too. It won’t be easy. But,” and her eyes flick up to meet Eunwoo’s, her slender fingers come to rest on top of Eunwoo’s own. “It’s never been easy for any of us, has it?”

“Are you lonely?” Eunwoo blurts.

Nayoung shakes her head. Her smile is close-mouthed but there’s something shining behind her eyes. “I grew tired of it.” She stirs her drink with the straw and takes another sip, and she’s looking at Eunwoo with something assessing in her eyes. “You’re not lonely, Nunu. Maybe you’re lovesick.”

“Don’t joke about that, unnie.” Eunwoo means for it to be playful, but her voice dies a little and it comes out as a reproach. When she looks into Nayoung’s eyes, they’re serious. Nayoung has always taken Eunwoo seriously, even when Eunwoo herself hasn’t been able to.

“I’m not joking,” says Nayoung quietly. “You know, you can go visit her. Didn’t your promotions just end?” A pause. “I’m sure she would love that.”

Eunwoo always finds an excuse. Jieqiong is in such high demand that it’s hard to predict when she would need to be filming, there’s a new reality show that their manager might want to try, she can always wait. Eunwoo isn’t quite sure what she’s waiting for. Maybe for her heart to unclench, for the pain to dull a little. But it doesn’t.

  
  
  
  


_Don’t hate me for this_ , texts Eunwoo, and as if she’s delivering the message in person she draws a deep breath before sending. _But I just landed in Shanghai..._

_WHAT! Why didn’t you tell me! What are you here for????_

Eunwoo swallows. She wishes she’d stayed in the Korean Air terminal to do this. At least the chatter around her would have been a little more familiar, a little more comforting.

Then: _You have to let me come get you!!!_

 _I’m on my way now. Are you hungry?  
_ _you still haven’t told me why you’re here… >___< _

Eunwoo braces herself and types, _it was really a spur of the moment thing_.

  
  
  
  


“Now are you going to tell me?”

Eunwoo sighs, from where she’s flopped down on Jieqiong’s bed in her fancy downtown apartment. What to say. She licks her lips, still a little sweet and salty from dinner. Jieqiong is watching her, and Eunwoo can’t imagine how much of a basket case she looks like right now.

“Eunwoo,” says Jieqiong carefully, “whatever is in your head, you can say it, right? I want to hear it, you know, I always have.”

“I know you have,” says Eunwoo, sitting up. “But it’s stupid. It’s selfish.” She pauses. “I think you know.”

“Aiya,” says Jieqiong, stroking Eunwoo’s cheek. “I can’t read your mind like I used to, Nunu.”

“I know!” Eunwoo says, and is a little horrified that it comes out almost like a wail. It’s the pet name that sets her off, maybe, just as much as how this distance is the one thing they can agree on. Ironic, how Jieqiong still cuts to the heart of the issue, even when she doesn’t know. “I just wanted to see you.”

It sounds even sillier now when she says it out loud, like she woke up from a bad dream and had to reach for Jieqiong to make sure she was real, except instead of reaching she took Nayoung unnie’s months-old advice on impulse, and booked a one-way flight from Seoul to Shanghai for the next day.

“Tell me,” Jieqiong says, leaning over now, her hair a curtain.

“That’s the thing,” Eunwoo says, “I know you don’t feel the same.” She swallows. She can’t even look Jieqiong in the eye. “I know it’s selfish, and I’m tired of it, and things are better for us both, but I can never get you back. I can’t have us back but some days it feels like that’s all I want.”

Jieqiong’s fingers pause. Her hand slips down to her chin, tips it up. Eunwoo has a flashback to being twenty one years old playing it up for the cameras, her cheeks between Jieqiong’s palms, Jieqiong’s lips at the corner of her mouth. Now they’re twenty four and maybe Eunwoo still dreams of being kissed and comforted like that, but they’re not anything anymore, not Pristin, barely Nunu and Juju, just two young women with an ocean between them.

“Eunwoo,” says Jieqiong, her brow furrowed, hands settling on Eunwoo’s shoulders. “It’s not selfish. I miss you too, so much sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself. And –” Something flashes across her face. “What I’m saying is, it’s not selfish to want something you already have. And you have my heart always, don’t you know that?”

“I know,” says Eunwoo. Her voice comes out small, and she’s thinking, _what use is your heart when we’ll never really be together again, and you know it, and it’s just me who isn’t able to accept that?_

“But there’s more, isn’t it,” says Jieqiong.

“But it’s terrible because even that isn’t enough for someone like me. I want –” How does she even explain this. “What I mean is, back then I dreamed we would spend the best years of our youths together, and it became something I couldn’t let go of. I know you still care for me but it’s not the same as being by your side.” Jieqiong’s fingers rub at her collarbones, steady like she has always been, and by this point Eunwoo is almost whispering. “But that’s not fair to you at all, is it? I can’t ask you to give up your life for – for whatever this is.”

There’s a long pause, and Jieqiong’s eyes close, and something furrows in her brow. Eunwoo waits, digging her fingers into the duvet.

“I could never ask that of you either, I guess.” Jieqiong shakes her head. “You’re not the first person to want the impossible.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, of course I dreamed about that too,” says Jieqiong. “Growing up together, being together, but also… it only, everything only made sense once I met you. You know how hard it is, the waiting, the uncertainty, being so tired you can barely get up in the morning, but you do it because of how badly you want a future together.” Eunwoo nods.

“It never felt like a future that I wanted until you came.” Jieqiong looks away. “And not speaking the language. And missing my family and my friends. And… and no more childhood crushes, no boys, no dating. I gave up my summers and then entire years. But I had you, do you see? And I thought, oh, this could be the rest of my life.”

“Kyulkyung,” says Eunwoo, palms sweating.

“So I get it,” she says, “I know what it’s like to want too much. I know, I know. Whatever this is” – she gestures between them – “is the only reason I even have the life I live now.” When she pauses she sounds weary, and Eunwoo thinks maybe it’s from holding on the way she does, steadfast and permanent, her old turtle soul. “Eunwoo, I’m so sorry… for ever pretending it could be any other way for me.”

Eunwoo opens her mouth to speak – say something, say anything – but Jieqiong’s hand comes to rest on her thigh, and she stills.

“You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to say a thing. But you could ask for anything from me, you see, and it would never be too much.” Jieqiong shakes her head, and her eyes are wet. “So please just let me comfort you.”

Eunwoo’s heart is in her throat. She barely knows how to ask.

“It feels different now, with us,” Eunwoo starts slowly. “I think we used to do it without words, know what the other wanted. I still don’t really know how to say it.” Jieqiong smiles sadly. “I wish you could open me up and tell me what’s wrong. I want you to know me like that again. It’s just that I’m lonely, and so tired, but what you said also makes me think…”

_You have my heart always, don’t you know that?_

Jieqiong lets her pull them back until they’re lying face to face. Eunwoo thinks about all the beds they’ve shared before this one, all the kisses, too, playful and tender. This one, though, feels serious. Eunwoo leans in, her heart beating rabbit fast, and miraculously, Jieqiong meets her halfway.

  
  
  
  


_Don’t you feel like a child sometimes_ ? she texts Jieqiong, once she gets off the plane. _Kicking and screaming against fate._

 _You aren’t nearly as bad now as you were as an actual child_ , responds Jieqiong. _I on the other hand was very well-behaved._

And then, a few seconds later, _But it’s possible I’m having a very late-breaking rebellious phase. Oh Nunu, the things I do for you._

  
  
  
  


The memory of them all on that stage still feels so golden. Eunwoo will always remember it like a sunburst, as the moment the future opened up wide for ten girls before closing once again. Their dreams were fueled by the kind of wild, reckless hope of every trainee who made it to debut. No one dared to imagine how awry things would go.

Eunwoo has put it to rest, in a way. Hinapia had their first small win a few months ago, but of course it’s not the same. She’s wiser this time around, and surer of her grasp on her future, the people she loves.

Jieqiong is by her side now, her head hooked over her shoulder as they sit in a samgyeopsal place. Eunwoo fiddles with the hem of her shirt as they wait for the meat to char. It’s almost like old times again, sitting like this with Jieqiong and the others, squished together in a restaurant booth after a long day of practice. At one point the thought would have twisted a knife in her gut, but today Eunwoo leans into the welcome weight of Jieqiong at her side. Slowly, the present is getting better than the memory of the past.

“Let’s get another order of meat,” says Jieqiong, flagging down the waitress. “My treat.”

“What do you mean!” crows Eunwoo, as the other members erupt in similar complaint. “Juju, you’re the guest,” reproaches Minkyung. Even Bada waves her hands weakly in protest. Eunwoo beats them all to press her credit card into the unfortunate waitress’ hand and hopes her expression conveys enough of an apology.

“You can repay me when you move into your fancy new Gangnam place,” says Eunwoo, in response to the pout she can feel forming against her neck.

It hasn’t been smooth sailing. A lawsuit, and the inevitable rumors, and the barely suppressed threat of a fall from grace. But in the balmy heat of the little restaurant Eunwoo stretches her legs out and thinks of everything the future holds: Jieqiong will take her someplace nice, that’s for sure, and pour out baekseju until Eunwoo is flushed and giddy, and leave lipstick prints on her pinked cheeks on the walk back home. Eunwoo feels like an excited puppy, her heart racing at the thought. She turns to bury her face in Jieqiong’s hair.

Yaebin clears her throat, and Kyungwon giggles. “I’m sure we’re _all_ glad you’re coming back to Seoul, even if it’s only for part of the year,” says Yaebin, kicking Eunwoo under the table.

Jieqiong smiles. “My new management thought it would be a pity to let my Korean fanbase go to waste,” she says. “Especially this one right here.” Eunwoo feels knuckles pressing into her head. In the background, Minkyung gags.

  
  
  
  


“Do they really know?” asks Eunwoo later, when the others have returned to the dorm. Her arms are looped into Jieqiong’s as they stroll through the hazy dusk light. Tomorrow she’ll have to see Jieqiong off at the airport again, but it gets a little easier to let her go each time, knowing that she’s bound to return.

“Ah,” says Jieqiong. “Let’s say they know enough about us.” She turns to Eunwoo, and though her eyes crinkle, Eunwoo guesses that the smile underneath is close-mouthed, ambivalent. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she whispers, “but I gave them an ultimatum when I signed.”

“Joo Kyulkyung!” Eunwoo presses her hands to her heart and lurches back as if she’s been hit by an arrow. “Are you serious?”

“Very serious,” says Jieqiong. She pries Eunwoo’s hands off her chest and intertwines one with her own. “You’re important, you know.”

“I can’t believe you would do that,” says Eunwoo, though something bright and hot is blooming in her chest, and she can’t help the way her cheeks push up into a smile. From the way Jieqiong is looking at her, the face mask does little to hide it.

Jieqiong lets her chatter on as they walk the length of the park, about her mother, about Hochu and Hodu, about the last time she had dinner with Nayoung unnie and Nayoung had the audacity to make her pay. When they emerge into the street again, Eunwoo sees a young woman rearranging fruit on an altar. “Oh,” she says, and Jieqiong stops with her to look. “It’s Chilseok soon, isn’t it?”

The skies above are open and warm. “We say Qixi,” says Jieqiong, tracing the hanja in the air with her finger. Eunwoo doesn’t remember the specifics of the story, though Jieqiong has surely told it to her multiple times before, the Korean version and the Chinese version both. Instead she thinks about the trainee summer when Jieqiong took her up to the dorm rooftop to point out Vega and Altair, tangling their fingers in the sticky heat, the itch of her mosquito-bitten knees. Sitting there and dreaming of debut, for the very first time the future had felt as full as the Milky Way.

Nine years later, and Jieqiong’s hand is still in hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for GG Jukebox Round 2, inspired by Long Live by Taylor Swift.
> 
> this is for siyao and kaia, the original pristinators in my life, and risa and sam, my character writing inspirations. and if you miss pristin then this one's for you, too <3


End file.
